Posts Tagged ‘Religion’

Soccer supremo says FIFA more influential than every religion

Tuesday, March 31st, 2015

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has boasted that his organisation is more influential than any country in the world and every religion. The boss of soccer’s governing body told Swiss paper Sonntags Zeitung that FIFA’s influence is because of “the positive emotions it releases”. He said his organisation reaches 1.6 billion people. “FIFA is more influential Read more

Auckland Study – Big gods not needed to help societies to grow

Friday, March 6th, 2015

Some scientists have suggested that belief in the big gods of moralising religions, such as Islam and Christianity, helped people cooperate with each other and encouraged societies to grow. Psychology studies have shown people are nicer to each other when they think someone is watching, —especially if they believe that someone has the power to Read more

Judge limits children’s exposure to mum’s Jehovah’s Witness faith

Friday, December 19th, 2014

A judge has stopped two children, whose parents have separated, from attending Jehovah’s Witness meetings or church activities. After their separation in 2010, the mother became an adherent of the Jehovah Witness faith. Without the father’s knowledge, she introduced the children, then aged 4 and 6, to the religion. Justice Brendan Brown said his ruling Read more

Bad religion finds fault with earth’s beauty

Tuesday, November 25th, 2014

Bad religion. There’s a lot of it around still, though I am convinced there’s less of it (at least of the Christian variety) than there has been in the past. Even so, desperately bad religion dominates the daily paper, from Islamic fundamentalists filming grizzly decapitations, to the Catholic powers that be still trying to cover Read more

Religion and violence

Tuesday, November 18th, 2014

(RNS) In the West, the idea that religion is inherently violent is taken for granted by everyone from academics to cab drivers, says British religion scholar Karen Armstrong, the former Roman Catholic nun who wrote the best-selling “A History of God.” Her new book, “Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence,” picks at the Read more

The science-religion divide and the Vatican astronomer

Tuesday, October 7th, 2014

Are science and religion fundamentally at odds? Many well-known astronomers and astrophysicists think so, including Stephen Hawking, who in a recent interview said, “Before we understood science, it was natural to believe that God created the universe, but now science offers a more convincing explanation… I’m an atheist.” Other astronomers see no fundamental incompatibility between Read more

Sunday Assembly not anti-god

Friday, October 3rd, 2014

Those responsible for bringing the Sunday Assembly to New Zealand are keen to dispel any preconceived negative ideas people may have about their movement. Just like any church service, there is singing, service sheets and meaningful readings. But unlike others, the Sunday Assembly is a godless congregation focussed on inspiring guest speakers. “We don’t say Read more

The future of Christianity in Europe

Friday, September 26th, 2014

In Western Europe, politics and the media are still dominated by the liberal mentality that prevailed among European intellectual elites for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and gave rise to various versions of the “theory of secularisation.” Some of those theories assumed, in the light of the changing role of the major Christian Read more

Bishop Duckworth: Camino churches didn’t engage with pilgrims

Friday, September 26th, 2014

The Anglican Bishop of Wellington New Zealand, Justin Duckworth and his wife undertook the month-long Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in June. Many people on the walk, he said, wanted to talk to him about his role as a Bishop, and his experience of God. He was surprised that monasteries and churches appeared not to engage Read more

New atheist church opens its doors in Christchurch

Friday, September 26th, 2014

The Sunday Assembly, commonly know as the atheist church, has arrived in Christchurch. Sunday Assembly Christchurch will formally launch on Sunday September 28th, 2014. Sunday Assembly is a church without god but it is not necessarily anti god. Sunday Assembly was founded in London in January 2013, and since then it has exploded across the world Read more